Methods of and apparatus for loading automatic hot topping apparatus with hot topping slabs

ABSTRACT

A method for loading hot topping slabs onto a device for placing them in an ingot mould. A plurality of slabs of refractory heat insulating material are loaded into a magazine, and then dispensed one-by-one from the magazine, and automatically applied to the hot topping device. The slabs may be large enough to cover two sides of the device at the same time, thereby cutting down on loading time. After placement of slabs on the device, the device is located within an ingot mould or ingot mould head box, and the slabs are transferred from the device onto the wall of the ingot mould or ingot mould head box.

United States Patent [1 1 Eccleston et al.

[4 1 Oct. 14, 1975 METHODS OF AND APPARATUS FOR LOADING AUTOMATIC HOT TOPPING APPARATUS WITH HOT TOPPING SLABS [75] Inventors: Kenneth Thomas Eccleston; John George Frizzell, both of Birmingham, England [73] Assignee: Foseco International Limited,

Birmingham, England [22] Filed: Mar. 22, 1974 [21] Appl. No.2 453,959

Related US. Application Data [62] Division of Ser. No. 260,438, June 7, 1972, Pat. No.

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data June 16, 1971 United Kingdom 28242/71 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 9/1960 Mazarakis 164/339 Primary Examiner-C. W. Lanham Assistant Examiner-James R. Duzan Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Cushman, Darby & Cushman [57] ABSTRACT A method for loading hot topping slabs onto a device for placing them in an ingot mould. A plurality of slabs of refractory heat insulating material are loaded into a magazine, and then dispensed one-by-one from the magazine, and automatically applied to the hot topping device. The slabs may be large enough to cover two sides of the device at the same time, thereby cutting down on loading time. After placement of slabs on the device, the device is located within an ingot mould or ingot mould head box, and the slabs are transferred from the device onto the wall of the ingot mould or ingot mould head box.

4 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures US. Patent Oct. 14, 1975 Sheet 2 of 2 3,911,551

NOE

METHODS OF AND APPARATUS FOR LOADING AUTOMATIC HOT TOPPING APPARATUS WITH HOT TOPPING SLABS This is a division of application Ser. No. 260,438 filed June 7, 1972, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,210.

This invention relates to methods of for loading automatic hot-topping apparatus with hot topping slabs.

In casting molten metal to form ingots it is customary to line the top of the ingot mould or a head box on such a mould with a layer of heat insulating refractory material. It is naturally desirable to effect such a lining operation, so called hot-topping, as rapidly and economically as possible. Manual methods are time consuming, laborious and subject to variation and thus it is desirable to provide automatic hot-topping apparatus. This is especially the case if the mould or head box to be lined is hot and thus difficult to work on.

Various automatic forms of apparatus are known and others are proposed in our copending United States applications Ser. No. 260,439 (now U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,664), filed June 7, 1972, and Ser. No. 260,440 (now U.S. Pat. No. 3,802,058) filed June 7, 1972. All these apparatus, once loaded with slabs of refractory heat-insulating material, are moved to locate the slabs of heat-insulating refractory material in the mould or head box and possibly also to affix the material in place. The slabs of heat insulating material usually have to be loaded onto the apparatus by hand, but this has the disadvantage of slowing down the maximum speed of the whole hot-topping operation.

All types of automatic hot topping apparatus have holding means on them for holding slabs of refractory 'heat insulating material in position. Suitable holding means are clips, hooks and lugs.

According to the present invention there is provided apparatus for loading slabs of refractory heat-insulating material onto hot topping apparatus which loading apparatus comprises a base, a slab carrier moveable on the base into and out of co-operation with holding means on the hot topping apparatus, means for locating the hot topping apparatus in fixed position relative to the base, and means for moving a slab on said slab carrier into engagement with the holding means on the hot topping apparatus when the slab carrier is in a cooperating position with respect to the holding means.

The preferred form of holding means on the hot topping apparatus is one or more cylindrical projecting lugs. In such a case, the slab carrier may include one or more rods, each of which passes through a suitable aperture in each ofa load of hot topping slabs, the rod engaging axially with the lug when the slab carrier is brought into co-operation with the holding means. Each slab is then slid axially along the slab carrier rod(s) and onto the projecting lugs. For accurate locating, each rod on the slab carrier may terminate in a tapered pin which engages with a corresponding aperture in the end of each lug.

The present invention provides a method of hot topping which comprises loading a plurality of slabs of refractory heat insulating material into a magazine, dispersing slabs one-by-one from the magazine, automatically applying the slabs to hot topping apparatus, locating the hot topping apparatus within an ingot mould or ingot mould headbox and transferring the slabs from the hot topping apparatus onto the wall of the ingot mould or ingot mould head box.

The present invention also provides a method of loading slabs of refractory heat insulating material onto hot topping apparatus, which method comprises the steps of locating the hot topping apparatus in a fixed position relative to loading apparatus as set forth above, advancing a slab carrier into cooperation with the hot topping apparatus, transferring a slab from the slab carrier to the hot topping apparatus automatically to locate it in position thereon and subsequently withdrawing the slab carrier.

Automatic hot topping apparatus generally comprises a frame of the same general shape as the ingot mould or head box cavity, and this is thus usually of rectangular section. It is thus necessary to load a slab onto each wall of the hot topping apparatus and this may be done either by using a separate loading apparatus for each wall and moving the hot topping apparatus each time, or preferably using a plurality of loading apparatus. A particularly preferred arrangement for rectangular section apparatus is to use two loading apparatus, each of which loads a long slab onto two adjacent walls thereof.

In such a case each slab may be provided with one or more notches to permit the slab to bend around the corner of the hottopping apparatus and means may be provided on the loading apparatus to engage the free end of a slab, after one end has been engaged on one wall of the hot topping apparatus, to bend the free end round into engagement with an adjacent wall of the hot topping apparatus.

By way of example, apparatus for loading heat insulating slabs onto ingot mould hot topping apparatus according to the present invention is illustrated diagrammatically in the accompanying drawings. For simplicity, all hydraulic lines have been omitted.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the loading apparatus,

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the apparatus of FIG. 1 and showing hot topping apparatus in position, and

FIG. 3 is a side elevation of the apparatus of FIG. 2.

The device shown in the drawings and especially FIG. 1 comprises a generally horizontal base 10 supporting tracks 11 in which a roller carriage 12 may slide.

Locating and guide rods 13 are mounted in blocks 14 fixed on the roller carriage 12, the rods 13 terminating in locating pins 15. A cross-bar 17 is slidably mounted on rods 13 and is connected to the piston 18 of a hydraulic piston/cylinder 19. The carriage 12 also supports, through a bracket 20, a lower rod 21.

An arm 22 is pivotally mounted at 23 on the base 10, swinging of the arm being controlled by means ofa piston/cylinder unit 24 mounted on base 10. The arm 22 carries at its extremity a vertically extending rod 25.

A hydraulic piston/cylinder 29 extends between the roller carriage l2 and a cross member 30 attached to the tracks 11.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a hot topping apparatus 31 is shown very diagrammatically as a frame of generally rectangular cross-section and including spring operated latches 32 on each face. The apparatus 31 also carries projecting pins 33 having recesses (not shown) for the reception of the pins 15 of the device.

In operation the piston/cylinders 19 and 29 are both first fully retracted and a series of slabs 35, which have holes passing through them of approximately the same diameter as the rods 13, are located on rods 13 with their bottom faces resting on the outer lower rod 21.

Each slab is of a length such that it forms two side walls 36 and a corner 37,'the three members being interconnected by suitable hinge means which may be a flexible backing strip on the slab or a thinner section of the material of the slab itself, made by providing grooves 38 in the slabs.

The apparatus 31 is then placed in the correct position, i.e. as shown in FIG. 2 by lowering it into a suitable cradle or locating means and piston/cylinder 29 is then operated to move the roller carriage 12 forward so that the pins 15 engage in the recesses in the pins 33. Piston/cylinder 19 is then operated to move the crossmember 17 and push the slabs 35 along the rods 13 until the front slab engages over pins 33. As can be seen from FIG. 3, due to the tapered top face of the slabs, latch 32 is now in position to engage the front slab and prevent its removal from apparatus 31. The slab, located on the pins 33, has by now moved sufficiently forward to free end 40 from the end of the lower support rod 21, and, by virtue of the weight of the slab and notches 38, the end 40 swings freely to the position in dicated by 40a. Piston/cylinder 24 is then actuated to its contracted position so that when the shaft 25 contacts the back face of the slab and pushes end 40a round until the slab contacts the adjacent wall of the apparatus 31, and is held by latch 32. To ensure that the end ofthe slab 40 is in the correct vertical position,

a guide face 42 is provided on the cradle supporting the apparatus 31.

Piston/cylinder 24 is then extended and piston/cylinders 19 and 29 retracted to leave the L-shaped slab held in position by the latches 32 and extending around two adjacent side walls of the apparatus 31.

The other two side walls of apparatus3l may be lined simultaneously by the use of a second loading apparatus acting on these two walls or alternatively the apparatus 31 may be lifted, rotated through 180 and the same loading device used to line the other two walls.

if, instead of one slab lining two walls, only one wall is lined with each slab, then most preferably four loading apparatus are provided.

In order to ease and speed the loading of the slabs of heat insulating material onto the loading apparatus of the present invention, as described above, the slabs are preferably assembled in packs of suitable size, withthe slabs pre-aligned, preferably by rods passing through the holes in the slabs. These rods may have an aperture in their ends so that they can be engaged over pins 15 and the whole pack of slabs slid off the packing rods and onto rods 13.

We claim as our invention: 1. In the process of hot topping the steps of loading a plurality of slabs of refractory heatinsulating material into a magazine,

dispensing slabs one-by-one from the magazine while automatically applying the slabs to hot topping apparatus,

locating the hot topping apparatus within an ingot mould or ingot mould head box, and

transferring the slabs from the hot topping apparatus onto the wall of the ingot mould or ingot mould head box.

2. In the method of loading slabs of refractory heatinsulating material onto hot topping apparatus, the steps of locating the hot topping apparatus in a fixed position relative to apparatus for loading which comprises a base, a slab. carrier moveable on the base into and out of cooperation with holding means on the hot topping apparatus, means for locating the hot topping apparatus in fixed position relative to the base, and

means for moving a slab on said slab carrier into engagement with the holding means on the hot topping apparatus when the slab carrier is in a cooperating position with respect to the holding means, advancing the slab carrier. into cooperation with the hot topping apparatus, transferring a slab from the slab carrier to the hot topping apparatus automatically to locate it in position thereon and subsequently withdrawing the slab carrier.

3. The process as recited in claim l wherein each of said slabs comprises a double slab member, and

wherein said step of applying the slabs to hot topping apparatus is accomplished by simultaneously applying i each of said double slab members to two distinct wall portions of said hot topping apparatus, whereby loading time may be greatly reduced.

4. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein each of said slabs comprises a double slab member, and wherein said step of transferring a slab member from the slab carrier to the hot topping apparatus to automatically locate it thereon is accomplished by simultaneously applying each of said double slab members to two distinct wall portions of said hot topping apparatus,

whereby loading time may be greatly reduced. 

1. In the process of hot topping the steps of loading a plurality of slabs of refractory heat insulating material into a magazine, dispensing slabs one-by-one from the magazine while automatically applying the slabs to hot topping apparatus, locating the hot topping apparatus within an ingot mould or ingot mould head box, and transferring the slabs from the hot topping apparatus onto the wall of the ingot mould or ingot mould head box.
 2. In the method of loading slabs of refractory heat-insulating material onto hot topping apparatus, the steps of locating the hot topping apparatus in a fixed position relative to apparatus for loading which comprises a base, a slab carrier moveable on the base into and out of cooperation with holding means on the hot topping apparatus, means for locating the hot topping apparatus in fixed position relative to the base, and means for moving a slab on said slab carrier into engagement with the holding means on the hot topping apparatus when the slab carrier is in a cooperating position with respect to the holding means, Advancing the slab carrier into cooperation with the hot topping apparatus, transferring a slab from the slab carrier to the hot topping apparatus automatically to locate it in position thereon and subsequently withdrawing the slab carrier.
 3. The process as recited in claim 1 wherein each of said slabs comprises a double slab member, and wherein said step of applying the slabs to hot topping apparatus is accomplished by simultaneously applying each of said double slab members to two distinct wall portions of said hot topping apparatus, whereby loading time may be greatly reduced.
 4. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein each of said slabs comprises a double slab member, and wherein said step of transferring a slab member from the slab carrier to the hot topping apparatus to automatically locate it thereon is accomplished by simultaneously applying each of said double slab members to two distinct wall portions of said hot topping apparatus, whereby loading time may be greatly reduced. 